


Cult of Self

by Killmongerrrr



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: All the freedom fighter kids have PTSD honestly, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Author is mlm, Dai li fuckery, Jet has PTSD, Lake Laogai (Avatar), M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sorta dark?, There Is No War In Ba Sing Se, alternate bending, as does Zuko, seeing as they’re all just traumatized kids, tired of them being portrayed as awful jerks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:34:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27096628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killmongerrrr/pseuds/Killmongerrrr
Summary: Zuko uncovers a secret in Ba Sing Se that’s been long kept under wraps.The girls in Ba Sing Se disappear.(And they don’t come back.)
Relationships: Jet/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 73





	Cult of Self

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! First atla fic and I have a loooooottta shit planned for this. Not sure how many chapters this will be, but if I like it enough it might be 5-7. The Jetko bit isn’t the main focus of the story, so sorry if that’s what y’all were looking for!

Zuko meets Jet on a ferry headed for the great city of ghosts. On this day, his hair is short and choppy from hastily cutting it with a knife, and he’s lost enough weight that he looks just a bit sharper in the face. The clothes he’s wearing are dirty from traveling in them too long, his sleeves worn at the edges and stained with blood where the hilt of his swords once blistered and peeled back the skin on his palms. 

Jet is a mismatched boy with equally mismatched armor, and Zuko already doesn’t like him. He walks like he’s ready for a fight, and carries a pair of shuang gou that hang from his waist and make a faint clinking noise when he walks. Zuko knows a ghost when he sees one, knows the eyes and face and posture of someone who’s walked too far and seen too much. (Shell-shock, they’re calling it these days. He forgot the proper medical term for it, but he remembers one of his crewmates suffering these horrible breakdowns that would leave him grasping for events long passed. Uncle had talked a bit about it the following weeks of his banishment, when he’d flinch away from fire and freeze up like he’d been struck).

Jet is confident where his hands shake, and persuasive where he is not much. 

“Here's the deal.” Jet starts. “I hear the captain's eating like a king while the refugees have to feed off his scraps. Doesn't seem fair, does it?” Jet says, with this gleam in his eyes that kinda reminds him of Azula— except it’s a bit more shaky and a bit more hungry. He sounds like her too. Zuko wants to say no, doesn’t want to make friends with this mismatched boy and his war children, but then Uncle says “what kind” and Zuko already knows he’ll be roped into this whether he wants to or not.

In the end, he is. Zuko follows Jet to the kitchens and steals what all he can carry with practiced ease, balancing on the balls of his feet as he runs and jumps and walks. If he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the familiar blue and white wood nestled against his face— but it is only there like a memory.

His uncle drinks cold tea and Jet smiles at him all quiet and observing. His friends don’t speak to him, but he thinks he sees a spark of recognition flicker over the taller one’s face before it is gone. The other one watches him with wary suspicion, but Jet and his friends don’t stick around long enough for her to figure him out. 

“I’ve done terrible things.” Jet says, his hands trembling with a type of trauma Zuko can only guess at. Inwardly, Zuko regrets.

Night falls— and besides the ship, there is nothing he can see but the vast ocean below them, miles and miles of it— eerie in its quiet. There’s a blanket of fog in the distance, and the strong smell of sea breeze reminds him of the phantom black and red armor that once sat heavy on his shoulders. 

“That’s some skill you got there.” He hears from behind him, followed by the faint echos of footsteps off metal. Jet comes to stand beside him, familiar hooked swords hanging from his waist. “With your swords—I mean. I never caught your name?” 

Zuko tilts his head, a small smile creeping onto his face. He knows people like Jet, the people who are too focused on their own names and faces to really remember others’.

“I never threw it.” He says, leaning over the metal rails of the ship. “Li.” He offers anyway. 

Jet grasps his arm and Zuko flinches away, turning to look at him. 

“Don’t fall.” He says, and Zuko almost wants to jump overboard out of spite. (Almost? Who knows. There’s this weird part of him that wants to wholeheartedly. He feels it in his arms and his face and burning on his tongue like hot dragon breath.)

“Hey.” Jet says, jerks him out of his thoughts. “Promise you won’t fall?” He continues, and there’s an odd symbolism hidden in between his words.

“Sure.” Zuko agrees, if only to get this mismatched boy to be quiet.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Zuko doesn’t sleep till Ba Sing Se is tangible beneath his feet and he can smell the fresh aroma of death and dying, metaphorically of course. If Zuko is lucky? He will never see Jet again.

(He’s never been lucky, just barely enough to not die in the womb. Jet shows up a day after he and uncle secure a job in Pao’s teashop with unsteady hands and a poorly masked uneasiness in the way he smiles.)

Cut, the slice of a knife— fingers winding through his hair. A quiet thank you and the smell of tea in the darker hours of the night. The feeling of being watched.

Zuko will say without doubt, that he hates Ba Sing Se. He hates how big it is— how easy it is to get lost, how the apartments stack up on top of each other like stairs and how criminals tuck away between buildings like pigeon-rats. He hates how the streets are almost always filled with homeless refugees, begging for change and famished from a day’s naught of food. He hates it here with every part of his being. Uncle, ever the optimist, sees it as a chance at a new life. He babbles on and on about starting anew and turning over a new leaf but Zuko sees it for what it really is: giving up. They’re quitting, hiding, closing their eyes and never opening them again. 

(Disappearing.)

The days following their subsequent hiring as workers in Pao’s teashop are monotonous and strangely ritualistic in nature. Zuko starts his days on the cusps of dawn, wide eyed at the barest peak of sunlight and soaked in sweat from the last night’s night terrors. He gets dressed with whispers of prayer on his tongue, charred fingers gingerly clasping the buttons on his tunic. On days where he and Uncle don’t work, the mornings are generally silent before the outside bustling of peddlers and shopkeepers start up. Uncle sometimes sleeps in, but usually likes to drag him along to the marketplace— where they’ll purchase a range of food and spices for cooking. Sometimes they’ll stay just long enough to hear the latest gossip, a mugging on the next block or another missing girl on the other. 

On days filled with work, Zuko runs through his mornings with just about the same routine— except Uncle is right on his heels with proverbs about a good night’s rest and early birds. Whatever those mean. 

(He spends the following hours trying not to explode at any of the customers. A woman comes in and orders jasmine tea without jasmine, and Zuko almost loses it.)

A paper bag and hesitant hands, Jet brings him a glazed bun after work and they split it on the roof of Zuko’s cramped apartment building. 

(“I’m not joining your little group just because you bought me food.” Zuko grumbles with a cross of the arms and a begrudging bite. It’s admittedly sweet.

“Who says I bought it?” Jet shrugs, shoots him another smile that he still can’t tell if it’s genuine or not. He bumps his shoulder with his and Zuko almost feels like smiling back.)

The days continue as they do. A regular at the teashop named Fen stops showing up. He sees a missing flyer of her posted up, but it’s ripped down the next day. He minds his business, as one does. 

Another day. A girl he recognizes from a trinket shop disappears. He brought a theater scroll from there once.

(“The fire nation took everything away from me.” Jet tells him, his feet dangling off the edge of the rooftop. His words burn with ash and scorched lungs. 

“Me too.” Zuko says. He feels cold air tingle the edges of his scar, where his skin is numb to the touch and mottled and red.)

He meets a girl named Jin, who has messy brown hair and these big pretty eyes that make him almost feel bad for not liking her back. He leaves her standing in front of the lanterns he lit up for her, a pathetic coupon clutched in her hand and dazed in her shock. He doesn’t see her in the teashop again. Nor does he see her in the marketplace or anywhere else in the lower ring. Pretty soon, there’s a missing flyer posted up all over the city, and Zuko tries not to think about how she’s gone because of him. 

The people that uncle likes to pause and talk to go on and on about wandering spirits that steal girls away from their homes and turn them into ghosts. 

Zuko minds his business. At night, he puts on a mask and searches. 

He finds Jin again when Jet invites him to come along with him, Smellerbee, and Longshot to a bathhouse up in the middle ring. She’s following a noblewoman, wearing overly fancy clothes that look so out of place on her that he almost doesn’t recognize her at first. 

“Jin?” He calls, and speeds ahead of the group. Jin doesn’t turn around, nor does she pause or slow down.

“Jin?” He calls again, and grabs her by the shoulder, spinning her around to face him fully. He gasps in shock and let’s her go once she turns to see him. His skin burns with the chill of gooseflesh that crawl up his arms and make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. 

“Oh you must be mistaken.” Jin says, a terrifying grin stretched across her face, almost pained. Her eyes are vacant, and her hair is neatly combed and brushed back. “My name is Joo Dee.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what y’all think so far! If there’s anything you’d like to see or any mistakes I made, let me know. Your comments are deeply appreciated 😁


End file.
